Jackson Pollock: MURAL

APRIL 5 – JULY 15, 2012BLANK TWO GALLERY

On loan from the University of Iowa Museum of Art, American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock's Mural has been said to be one of the most important modern American paintings.

Jackson Pollock is considered by many art historians to be the quintessential American artist. He was a founding member of Abstract Expressionism, the movement that established the United States, and specifically New York City, as the center of Western culture after World War II. In 1947, the critic Clement Greenberg called Pollock the “most powerful painter in contemporary America.” This is the painting that helped establish his career.

The art dealer and patron Peggy Guggenheim gave Mural to the University of Iowa in 1951, in part as a response to the extraordinary work being accomplished by the art department at the University. Guggenheim had commissioned Pollock to create the painting to fill the entrance hall of her East Side New York City townhouse in 1943. In doing so, Pollock merged a myriad of sources and life experiences. He drew from his teacher, the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton, as well as the art of Mexican muralists, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and channeled the expansiveness of the American West. Here, Pollock redefined the possibilities of painting with an energy and inventiveness that were distinctly American.